The Altered Case (15 page)

‘Such as?' Lemmon also reclined in his chair.

‘Well, for example, any difficulties at home, within the family, any boyfriend harassing her . . . that sort of thing?'

‘I remember her disappearing, I remember it so well. What brother wouldn't, even after thirty years?' He drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘But what was happening at the time?' Lemmon paused, looking down at the carpet. ‘She had a fight with our dad, she packed her bags and went away, but after a few days she didn't contact us . . . it was then when we reported her missing.'

‘She went to London. I read that in the file.'

‘She said she was going there . . .' Lemmon corrected Ventnor, ‘and that's what we told the police. It seems that everyone who runs away runs to London. I mean, who runs away to Belfast or Glasgow? And she did go there . . . sent us a card. So she made it. She got herself there.'

‘You didn't report that,' Ventnor said accusingly.

‘No, we didn't. That was our dad's idea. He said if we told you we had received a card then you wouldn't have taken the report, or you would have closed the case. Our dad thought that it was better if she was listed as a missing person; he thought it was better if the police . . . you guys, had an open file on her. You see, I think he thought that would mean that you would search for her, but I knew you don't search for adults, but I never told him that.'

‘In exceptional cases we have in fact been known to search for adults,' Ventnor replied, ‘but do carry on.'

‘OK . . . I think it helped him to think that our Michelle was being looked for,' Lemmon explained, ‘that the Metropolitan Police were organizing search parties, that sort of thing.'

‘I see.'

‘That's why he never reported the cards.'

‘Cards?' Ventnor queried. ‘You mean that there was more than one?'

‘Yes, there were seventeen in all, they all were from London. You know the type . . . tourist cards . . . Tower Bridge, Nelson's Column, and the message was always the same just, “Still OK”, that's all she ever wrote, “Still OK”, and signed “M” for Michelle. We recognized her handwriting so they came from her all right.' Lemmon leaned forward and flicked ash from his cigarette into the empty fire grate. ‘Then we got the last one, still in her handwriting which said, “This is not working, I am getting a lift up next week”.'

‘A lift?'

Harry Lemmon gave the thumbs up sign. ‘Hitching, boss.' He smiled. ‘That's what I assumed she meant; it was the only way she could get back up north unless she made some money. She had no skills to get a job and she wouldn't have sold her body, not our Michelle, she was too proud to do that. She had too much self-respect.'

‘Getting a lift,' Ventnor quoted. ‘Sounds like she had met someone who was giving her a ride up here, don't you think? Rather than taking a gamble on hitching a ride, she sounded very certain of returning on a particular day.'

‘Aye, that's a possibility, come to think of it.' Lemmon glanced upwards at the ceiling. ‘She hitched down to London, so we just assumed she meant she was going to hitch back . . . and she just got in the wrong car, it happens . . . such happens. So why are you interested after all these years? You said you want to make a positive identification.'

Ventnor told him.

Harry Lemmon fell silent, then he said, ‘You mean she made it? She got back to York only to be done in, murdered when she was practically home, right on her own doorstep?'

‘That would seem to be the case,' Ventnor replied softly. ‘I am very sorry.'

‘And she was found with the family who vanished? I remember the news about them disappearing and now they've been found –' Lemmon pointed to the small television set – ‘I saw it on there.'

‘The Parrs?' Ventnor replied. ‘Yes, if it's her she was found with the Parrs.'

‘So that means that she was in their car.' Lemmon slowly stood, turned his back on Ventnor and walked to the window of his flat and looked out over the back gardens of Tang Hall Estate.

‘It's now a distinct possibility,' Ventnor confirmed, ‘but the identification still has to be made. How long was she in London?'

‘Sixteen – seventeen weeks. We got a card once a week. It always arrived on a Saturday, posted second-class, so she would have posted the card each Thursday.'

‘Do you have the cards?' Ventnor asked.

‘No . . . no . . . we let our dad take them.' Harry Lemmon fell silent and then said, ‘He pined for our Michelle once the cards stopped arriving and he carried those postcards with him wherever he went . . . poor old guy. He loved Michelle . . . father and daughter . . . there was always a closeness between those two despite the arguments. So we let him take them with him, put them into his coffin . . . poor old soul. Might sound a bit daft but it's the sort of thing you do when a loved one dies.'

‘Yes,' Ventnor replied softly, ‘I can understand that. I can see myself doing the same thing.'

‘It made us feel better.' Lemmon forced a smile and half turned to Ventnor.

‘Oh believe me,' Ventnor replied, ‘I fully understand.'

‘You know . . . you know.' Lemmon raised a finger and fully turned towards Ventnor. ‘You could try Mary Emery.'

‘Mary Emery.' Ventnor took his notebook from his pocket. ‘Who is she?'

‘Her school friend,' Lemmon explained. ‘They were very close; it was Mary who told us that our Michelle had probably hitched to London. They were as thick as thieves were those two lasses. Don't know where she is now. She'll be a married woman with a different name, but her mother still lives in the same house Mary grew up in. She's getting on now is old Mrs Emery.'

‘She would be.' Ventnor took his pen from his jacket pocket.

‘Well, she was young when she had Mary, so I reckon she'll be in her seventies now, well into them, but she still has it all upstairs.' Lemmon tapped the side of his head. ‘She's still as sharp as a tack. She's at number 113, Ninth Avenue. That way –' he pointed to his left – ‘so back towards Third Avenue, but not as far as Third Avenue.'

Ventnor wrote on his pad and then stood, smiling as he did so. ‘So, Ninth Avenue is between Third Avenue and Eighth Avenue? That makes a lot of sense.'

‘That's Tang Hall.' Harry Lemmon shrugged. ‘You get used to it if you live here. I'll get that bit of our Michelle's hair for you then I'm going out. I've got a bit of cash . . . I need a drink.'

Somerled Yellich, who often had to explain that his Christian name is Gaelic and pronounced ‘Sorely', did not at first recognize the woman. He was strolling slowly through the city of York, along Davygate which, as was normal, was thronged with shoppers, with two sets of street entertainers engaging modest crowds, when the woman suddenly stepped in front of him. The first thing he noticed was the look of fear in her eyes. ‘Can I help you, madam?' Yellich asked.

‘You don't recognize me, do you?' the woman said. ‘You came to my house a day or two ago, you and the older officer. I'm Mrs Farrent.'

‘Of course,' Yellich replied. ‘Sorry, it was seeing you here, different context. I would have recognized you—'

Thomas Farrent suddenly appeared, stepping out of the crowd as if from nowhere. He grabbed his wife roughly and tightly by her upper arm. He glared at Yellich and pulled her away with him, and they both seemed to vanish, seemingly swallowed by the throng of people.

The woman was elderly, frail-looking, short and she could so very easily be overpowered, Ventnor assessed, yet she seemed to open the door to her flat with all the confidence of a Royal Marine Commando. She exhibited no fear as to who might have rung her doorbell. She just flung it open wide and demanded, ‘Yes?'

‘Police.' Ventnor showed her his ID.

‘Yes, thought you might be.' The woman spoke with a local accent. ‘I watched you walking up the road towards my flat, looking around you all the time, unconcerned for your own safety, then that knock . . . not too loud but it had an authority about it.'

‘Ah.' Ventnor inclined his head. She had, he thought, just gone some considerable way to explain her fearless manner of opening the door of her flat. ‘You are Mrs Emery?'

‘Yes.' Mrs Emery was smartly dressed in a yellow blouse and a dark grey skirt.

‘With a daughter, Mary?'

‘Yes, though she is a married woman now, but, yes, she is still my daughter and she is called Mary.'

‘Good . . . we would like to talk to her. Can you tell me how I can contact her?'

Mrs Emery scowled. ‘She's not in any trouble, I hope?'

‘No, none at all, I assure you,' Ventnor replied, ‘really, but we believe she can be of assistance to the police.'

‘Good, I am relieved. She married well, you see.' Mrs Emery seemed to Ventnor to stiffen with pride. ‘Her husband's a solicitor, you see, very proper.'

‘I see . . . very good.' Ventnor again inclined his head. ‘Where can we contact her?'

‘She lives at Stockton-on-the-Forest in a house called “The Mill”.'

‘“The Mill”,' Ventnor repeated.

‘I'll have to let her know that you're on your way,' Mrs Emery explained.

‘Of course. We'll call tomorrow. “The Mill”, Stockton-on-the-Forest.'

‘I see, so not an urgent case for you?' Mrs Emery surmised.

‘Serious.' Ventnor turned to go. ‘Very serious, but, no, not urgent. One day won't make a deal of difference.'

‘Can I say what it's about?' Mrs Emery queried, and did, so Ventnor thought, as much for her own sense of curiosity as it was to forewarn her daughter.

Ventnor paused. ‘I don't see why not,' he replied, ‘it's in respect of Michelle Lemmon.'

Mrs Emery caught her breath. ‘Michelle . . . she went away and never returned. No one knew what happened to her. Her poor father, he was sick with worry . . . so were all her family . . . but her father especially.'

‘So I understand.'

‘Mary and Michelle were very close,' Mrs Emery advised, ‘really good friends. Neither my husband nor I cared much for the family as a whole but Michelle was a very pleasant girl who grew into a pleasant young woman, unlike her brother, Harold, though he's calmed down now. He's almost respectable.'

‘Well, if you could tell your daughter I'll be calling on her tomorrow. Who do I ask for?'

‘Mrs Fleece. Mrs Mary Fleece.'

‘Thank you.' Ventnor turned and went back down the stairs and into Ninth Avenue thinking, Fleece . . . Fleece, what an appropriate name for a lawyer.

The man stood in his living room staring out of the wide window at the crimson sunset. ‘Keep calm,' he told himself, ‘keep calm. So they have been found, after thirty years, but there is still a long way to go before anything can be proved. The important thing is not to panic.'

Behind him, the woman lay on the floor, conscious but motionless, utterly motionless, too frightened even to breathe.

Thomson Ventnor returned home in a quiet, calm manner. He chose to travel to and from work by public transport. Living, as he did, just outside the city centre in suburban Bishopton, a car, he felt, was a needless extravagance. He entered his modest, he thought, three bedroomed semi-detached house with a small garden, which, like the washing-up and the housework, stubbornly refused to do itself. His garden, he freely acknowledged, was the least tidy in the whole street, the pile of dirty dishes never got higher, but never diminished either, and the bed linen should have been changed days earlier.

He put a ready cooked meal purchased from the supermarket into the microwave and listened to the mellifluous tones of the Radio Four newscaster while he waited for the meal to cook. After eating his meal, which he took in the kitchen, rather than in his dining room, he changed into a grey, lightweight Italian suit, and wearing a lightweight summer raincoat and hat he left his house and took a bus to the outskirts of the city. Alighting the cream single-decker Rider York bus at a stop in a leafy lane, he walked a hundred yards in the pleasant early evening, then turned into an imposing stone gateway and walked up the driveway to a large Victorian era house. He opened the porch door and signed in the visitors' book, and then opened the main door of the house and was met by a blast of warm air. He removed his hat and walked across the deep-pile maroon carpet in the foyer, before nimbly climbing the wide staircase. A young woman in uniform came down the stairs and they smiled at each other as they passed. Ventnor had noticed before that the superstition about it being a bringer of bad luck to cross another person on the stairs does not extend to institutions.

At the top of the stairs Ventnor walked across a landing and entered a room where elderly people sat in chairs placed around the walls of the room, where a television set, tuned into commercial television, was playing in the corner, and where carers in uniform appeared concerned and busy. A resident seated in the corner of the room smiled as he recognized Ventnor, but by the time Ventnor had crossed the carpet to sit beside the elderly man, the elderly man had become expressionless and stared into the middle distance. ‘Hello, father,' was all Ventnor could say. He remained for a few minutes sitting beside his father then went to see the matron to enquire about the old man's welfare. He then left the building and took a bus into York, where he went from pub to pub not wanting to settle in one for too long a time in case he was recognized by either colleagues or felons as being a lone drinker, and then went to Augusta's night club where it was dark within. He therein got into conversation with a woman of indeterminate age who seemed obsessed with package holidays and who insisted that Portugal was always the better destination than Spain. He bought her a drink and then, mumbling his excuses, he walked home.

Alone.

It was Wednesday, 01.10 a.m.